In February 2008, three ladies from Virginia decided to brave the summer weather in Australia and had what they have called an “Adventure of a Lifetime.”  One of these ladies, the only American pilot on the tour, has blessed us with a written version of the trip.  Parts of it will have you laughing out loud.  Other sections will have you shaking your head, (poor Phoebe losing her passport in the Sydney cab), but it’s easy to see what a great time they had.  If you’re interested in reading about their two weeks in the 100+F temperatures, keep reading.

Thanks again, Susan, for sharing your vacation with us.

FYI - Susan says she is looking forward to her next trip and is going as soon as she can find a passenger. 

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The most fantastic vacation ever!

Four women in two Cessna 172s flying 2500 nm (31 hours ) in
beautiful Australia- a country of vast contrasts from ultra modern
cities of Adelaide, Brisbane and Sidney to the outback and bush and the
awesome-barren emptiness. Such fabulous people. The flying challenging at
times but the only way to go. An adventure of a lifetime!

We were met after our commercial flight from LAX at the Quanta’s
Terminal in Brisbane by Sarah, the 25 year old Australian pilot that joined
our adventure, briefed us on VFR corridors that even the Australians
manage to screw up, interpreted the Australians rapid fire language (“we are
divided by one common language” became our chant). Sarah taught us that
the only beverage in Australia is  Cooper’s Pale Ale. Sarah was fantastic
fun, tough as they come and very knowledgeable about flying the Australian
Southeast. She was also a glider pilot which immediately endeared her to
me - she flew gliders at Waikerie!

Renting the two aircraft in Brisbane was interesting! The chief flight
instructor had no idea he was to rent out one of his aircraft to an American (
and a woman, at that). Finally after a morning and half an afternoon, the
decision was made to give me a check ride on my way from Archer Field in
Brisbane to Gold Coast. The written was grueling as I had less than 1/2 hour
to complete it before weather was to move in, I had no idea how to convert
meters to feet, liters to gallons-fortunately altitudes are in feet and miles in
nautical. The other fortunate part was that the instructor giving me the check
ride did not have time to grade the test before turning the keys over to me.
The check ride consisted mainly of navigation and an emergency or two. I
actually flew through a rainbow-never have done that before and it had to be
good luck as after landing with a 25 kt wind ( couldn’t see the airport until 2
mile final because of rain), the instructor stamped my log book and departed in another
aircraft with a student. We were free to begin our journey of a life time in
VH-Juliet Gulf Romeo-I grew to love this sturdy 1976 Cessna 172 with 53
gallons fuel!!! Sarah and Phoebe flew VH Bravo Victor Yankee, a fuel
injected Cessna 172 and light weight Suzanne was with me for the 2570nm
trip.

As more rain, wind and night were rapidly approaching we got our first of
many taxi cabs .Yes, and on our second day in Australia, we discovered
that ALL the toilets are weird and flush funny and the water goes the wrong
way.

In the morning after walking the beach  to see the sun come up over the
Pacific, I discovered the sun actually doesn’t come up exactly in the east
because it grew light BEHIND me. (11 degrees east variation was to
confuse this Virginian several times). After a delightful breakfast of iced
coffee and Coolangata pastries we walked the beach to the international
surfing contest-the waves were so huge, I could not believe people actually
ran toward them. In several hours we were flying over the same
unbelievably gorgeous beaches. On our flight to Coff’s Harbor having to
deviate inland for military airspace, I  realized  that the KLN 89 GPS was
not as reliable as I hoped ( probably pilot error-garbage in, garbage out). We
ended up following an active railroad track and I felt very much like I was
back in the US except for the gorgeous mountains, the miles of tropical trees
and farms.

My first real encounter with air traffic control was coming into Coff’s
Harbor. The airport looked deserted except for one lone airliner. Tower told
me to land on the grass strip-sort of surprised as there was no wind, no
traffic, I asked how long the grass strip was. He told me in meters, I asked
how long in feet. He said , “I’ll make it easy for you, just land on the paved
strip”. The Australians all seem to love Americans, the controllers just
aren’t sure we can fly aircraft. Taxi cab to “Opal Cove” another gorgeous
resort on the beach with a lagoon that I am sure had crocodiles-didn’t see
any and never did except in a zoo near Adelaide. There were several things
we were all going to lie about seeing but as we can’t keep our stories
straight, the fact is that we never saw the Blue Mountains as we had to get
on top going inland and coming home 13 days later again had to come in
over an overcast.

Dinner of Kangaroo- not bad, some Cooper’s Pale Ale and lots of laughs
and the next morning while flirting with the cab driver, Phoebe lost her
passport.  Australians are honest genuinely nice people and this man whose
name we never even knew, somehow tracked us down by phone in Sidney
to tell us he had found the passport and would forward it to our hotel in
Brisbane- “no worries” at this point but poor Phoebe did end up spending an
extra two nights in Australia as passport didn’t arrive in time for our
commercial flight back to US.

Sarah and I worked on our flight to Sidney and the nightmarish VFR
corridor -we were actually supposed to find the correct inlet and a light
house, after passing over at least ten on our  3.6 hour flight, we turned one
inlet to early and ended up flying over at least half the houses of this 4
million population city. Getting a little nervous about the all dreaded
military airspace, and not finding the Brooklyn Bridge, I called Sidney
approach which I gather is reserved for IFR only. The controller was
actually delightful even though I could only get about 1/4 of his kindly
staccato instructions. We did learn we were coming up on the Brooklyn
Bridge, which I probably would not have recognized as a bridge if I didn’t
have a good imagination. We dutifully went on our way after one more
request to the controller to “Repeat please”. The controller very pleasantly
and slowly said “ I said, Ga Day”. Oh they are wonderful people and by the
end of the trip, I actually looked forward to conversing with them.

Bankston Airport is one of the busiest general aviation airports in Australia-
so glad I was given a straight in to 11L as the taxing to general aviation
from 11C or 11R would be a zoo as “progressivetaxi”  doesn’t seem to be an
option in Australia and in all 12 of the airports in which we landed, I never
saw a taxiway sign! How is it that they don’t seem to have the runway
incursion problem we do in the US???

Sidney is an ultra modern delightful city with beautiful harbors-people
actually ride the high speed ferries to work in the morning. While the girls
went shopping, I headed via two ferry boats to Rose Bay where I got to take
my first DeHavilan Beaver Float Plane flight. Rose Bay, since the flying
boats era, has been designated for sea planes.  They let me sit right seat
behind the Pratt & Whitney, not that they were impressed with my seaplane
rating and 13 hours on floats in a PA18. Sidney is gorgeous from any view.
We took a sunset dinner cruise that night and saw it all again!

Our shortest flight, 12 miles, was from Bankston toward the Blue
Mountains. We had hoped to fly to Waga Waga however ended up at
Camden, a glider, tail dragger, small flight school airport with delightful
people. We waited for an opening in the clouds which never came. One of
the Australians locals, Mike and his son had lived in Roanoke and flew
gliders with Lanier and Tachla Franz at New Castle, Va!  They gave us a
ride to the only motel with rooms- Australia is a country of festivals-they
celebrate everything and instead of news casts at night they have sports
casts. The motel looked like a horse stable turned into a motel or a motel
made to look like a stable-whatever-it was clean and within walking
distance of a restaurant with great food and a lovely garden outback with
huge rose trees and every tropical  blooming plant imaginable. Sarah and I
waited out a rain storm in the bar and had the best time listening to a
fantastic two man band with true Australian music that was not country but
not anything else I recognized but really liked.

Bright and early the next morning we knew it was going to be a great day
when two hot air balloons floated by and a Pitts put on a air show in
apparently his practice area-fun. Breakfast from a grocery store and off on a
two leg day from Camden to over fly Waga Waga on to Yarranwonga for
fuel and  downing the rest of our grocery goods before heading over the first
big dessert like flat barrenness to the cool coast and Waranbool. It was a 6.2
hours of flying day with strap down thermals at 8500. For 50 miles I
practiced saying “Yarranwonga traffic Cessna 172 Juliet Gulf Romeo 10
North inbound for left downwind 19 Yarrawonga”- I still screwed it up but
we were so far from any other airport, they had to know I was coming into
the airport south of the huge lake. By that time the GPS was working,
although I never really trusted that it would-pilotage, pilotage, pilotage!
Suzanne was great at finding many of the check points -rivers and lakes
that had dried up, railroad beds of defunct train service, power lines that
blended with the moon type surface, towns consisting of 4 or 5 buildings,
main roads of dirt. I would never do this area of the world alone as Flight
Following and 1-800 WX Brief do not exist. No one would look for you
-maybe ever! Even after learning much of the phraseology, the airspace and
rules, it was comforting to know that Sarah would miss us if we did not
arrive at sunset.

Yarrawonga was my favorite airport of the trip. Ann and Peter ran the pilot
shop from a hangar with aircraft paraphernalia hanging from the rafters and
Trike Ultralights for rent. Peter is an instructor and used to fly big aircraft.
Such nice people-I want to go back! 

Waranbool was one of my favorite towns. The taxi cab driver could only
understand our Australian Sarah- wonder how many times we would have
been stranded without her? The light show of the ship wrecks would give
Disney a run for their money and dinner at Pippies would put some of our
finest restaurants to shame. By the way- no tipping in Australia, the wait
staff is apparently well paid and enjoy their jobs and their customers.

Taking off on the grass strip next morning was smoother than some paved I
have been on. This is the day to tell our second lie-we never saw the 12
Apostles in Warnabool-head winds so strong that even with 53 gal of fuel
we were a bit nervous about getting to an airport with fuel. Airports, except
in the larger cities, are completely secure, not a soul about and card lock
fuel with hoses that are so heavy it takes two women -one to hold the hose
while the other up on a spindly ladder fuels. Our third lie: we also never saw
a whales tale although we flew for 4.6 hours along the beach from
Warnabool to Adelaide -apparently the temperatures were so hot the whales
went south 30 miles to cooler waters. It was one of the prettiest flights
although we searched all altitudes from 500 ft to 8,500 for less of a head
wind.

Getting through and around military airspace and finding the VFR corridors
were the challenge of the long day- Sarah had briefed me to follow the
Mangroves inland once we got to the factories north of the big airport. I
never thought to ask her what the heck a Mangrove looked like on the
ground much less from the air, but somehow I managed to not violate any
airspace or at least they haven’t caught up with me yet.  I remember hearing
about a German that rented an aircraft in New York and had violated over a
hundred FARs and flown through multitudes of airspace restrictions by the
time the FAA caught up with him in California -they let him go if he
promised never to fly again in the US- I really didn’t want to mess things up
for future US pilots- it is too wonderful to spoil and besides-too
embarrassing.

We spent two interesting  days in Adelaide with Bob and Delray Keogh,
parents of Australian Air Safaris, giving Sarah a break and us a look at the
land from another generation closer to people that developed this country.
We drove through back country winding roads to a zoo with every
Australian animal and creature-so glad I saw some from a safe distance. We
actually saw kangaroos in the wild and the funniest Emu, they look at you
while they are running away and run right into things! At Victor Harbor we
walked out to the beautiful island on the South Sea and then took a horse
drawn tram back to mainland and vehicled to the harbor of Adelaide-again
so ultra modern with gorgeous sail and motor boats, wonderful restaurants
and kids and dogs picnicking on the grass.

Northeast we flew over the vineyards and wineries we had visited. We
followed the Murry river, the longest river in Australia, for over
half its length into the bush. We flew within 10 nm of Waikie- the
famous glider port of Australia. Now I know why as fairly early
morning at 7500 we were getting some strong thermals. It was so
desolate in this area that if you saw dust on the road miles away,
you couldn’t wait to see  what was kicking up such a trail and then
you would look down and feel they were so lonely, you circled
around just to let them know you were there- a bond in the middle
on no where.

Swan Hill! The part I remember the most about Swan Hill is that
after walking along the Murry River Path, I was so hot I ventured
into a RSL-Returned Service League, like our VFWs only open to
everyone because it is in a town of 11,000 and there aren’t enough RSL
people to keep it open. Deciding I wanted to blend in with the locals and
NOT be a tourist, I sat down and only said 3 words “Cooper’s Pale Ale”.
The bartender immediately said “ what part of the US are you from”-

so much for my attempt to eves drop.I learned it was 41Celsius outside,
which inspired quite a discussion from all trying to figure out how much
that was in Fahrenheit- had left my trusty E6 B in the aircraft- don’t even
think about going to Australia with out it. Anyway about 107F is what they
came up with and I decided not to continue my walk on the river. That night
we had an Italian dinner at Quovitis that was better than anything I had
eaten in Italy-the owner came to the table to take our order and actually
designed several delightful concoctions from the bar for us. Once Phoebe
was talking so much , he asked her if he had permission to leave and go fix
our food!

 7500 feet to Dubbo with a nice tail wind-3.1 hours. As we taxied in we saw
the Royal Flying Doctor King Air outside their hangar. What a read to learn
of this fabulous service that has provided health care for the outback stoic
people since the 1920s or maybe slightly earlier, now flying Navajos and
King Airs. After lunch in downtown Dubbo, population 30 plus thousand
we enjoyed a visit at Jedda Boomerang- the highlight of the people part of
the trip. These half breed Aboriginals were fascinating, telling of their
culture and beliefs. They made their living from art work and making
boomerangs from Mulga-a wood that is so dense, it will not float in water. I
bought and wood burned a decoration on one. Another River walk-much
more beautiful and with thoughts of all we had learned from these people
who believe everything has a living spirit. As I walked under a huge tree
filled with at least 50 white Cockatoos they set up such a racket. I laughed
out loud because the aboriginal woman told me that cockatoos were really
old aboriginal women that gossiped when ever a woman walked under their
tree-wow-how did they know so much to cackle about? The lady at the art
gallery told me the walk to our motel would be about 55 minutes-after one
and a half hours, I knew these Australians were not only tough but also fast
walkers!

After a delightful Thai dinner at the Rose Garden, we all walked the river
path to see the art work painted on the bridge abutments by the aboriginal
prisoners as community service projects-beautiful and so unique.

The next day a short cool flight arriving before lunch in the strangest place I
have ever been- flying over Lightening Ridge was our first indication that
this town was different-large piles of rocks, like big ant hills next to tin
boxes that could be houses with old cars sitting beside and holes in the
ground. Wow-it turned out this is how a lot of the 3,000 population made
their living-going underground by day to mine opals, to the bar at night
where we found these people to be interesting and fun to talk with. After the
bar they take the roughest roads I have ever been on back to their tin houses.
We took a tour of the mines and actually got out in the sweltering heat and
scratched around looking for something shiny or that could be polished up.
The people we met said mining was an obsession and even told of a man
that struck it rich but never left his tin house or claim and continued to live
his life  going down under the ground every day.

As we had not read the fine print in the ERSA (similar to our Airport
Facility Directory) we didn’t order fuel a week in advance so had to fly to
Moree the next morning. Because  it was predicted to be hot and one of our
longest flights, we left on our only drawn flight. Ended up with the sun
directly in our eyes and believe me, the sun is brighter in Australia.
 
Flying into Moree I had my most fun conversation with another aircraft. A
Caravan aircraft was coming in about the same time and being in no hurry, I told
him I would be #2 behind him. As he was exiting the runway, he thanked
me and I finally got to say it “NO WORRIES MATE”! Oh such fun.

On top over about 80 miles of overcast and we missed the Blue Mountains
again. Coming into Bellana at about 800 feet we saw Bravo Victor Yankee
chukka chukka chukking along-it was the third time on the whole trip we
saw each other although we did chat on their aircraft to aircraft 123.45.
We both had to “ORBIT” prior to clearance to pass at 500 ft on the coast at
the end of the Brisbane Int Airport. Glad Sarah had told me that “orbit”
meant “circle”. Also the pattern is called the circuit and AD means Air
Drome.

Then inland at an inlet at Southport field to follow the double lane  road to
the Bullseye painted on top of the Target Big Box-was really delighted
when both Suzanne and I spotted it at the same time. Called Archer Field to
proceed inbound for right down wind for 10R at 1500 ft and drop down to
1000 at the opposite end of the runway-how is it they don’t have aircraft
drop on top of each other? Then “cleared for the roll through”-aha-had
already been fooled on that one-it does not mean a touch and go-it means to
land long- apparently the Australians like to save tires and stay in the cool
air. The controller did fool me one more time -he told the aircraft behind me
that I was on “lite final”-being wary there was more of us turning final than
just me, I said “JGR is on right base”- only to find out from Sarah’s laughter
later  that “lite final”  means  “short final”. Now we  were“ home” from a
fabulous adventure. I will go back and hope I meet up with VH- JGR and all
the delightful people again-especially Sarah and I hope she becomes the
helicopter pilot she wants to be and I hope she flys for the Royal Flying
Doctor Service.